Guns and kids: Listen to the children

“I cried … I was praying to God … I didn’t want to die … I want to live to be old like you.”

Guns and kids are tragically intertwined today in America. From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Parkdale and dozens more, we are haunted by the image of innocent young bodies brutally shattered and shredded by high-powered military-style weaponry.

We could talk about colleges, churches or places of entertainment, but public schools are where this epidemic of gun violence threatens the bodies and haunts the souls of our children and grandchildren.

These are, “the times that torment children’s souls.” We need to listen to our children. Shut out the cacophony of political argument to listen to the clear voices of the children whose message comes genuinely from their innocence.

Adult debates dwell on facts, figures, theories, abstractions. But, to our children, guns killing kids in schools is not an abstraction. That hit me like a lightning bolt just last week right here in Butte. Here, like elsewhere, school officials conduct school “lockdown” drills. It’s the responsible thing to do. To us adults, that seems like the “fire drills” of our school life. But today our children are keenly aware why we need lockdown drills.

And when the lockdown is real, little kids feel sheer terror. Last week, a young man paraded near two Butte grade schools “exercising his constitutional rights” — an assault rifle visibly strapped over his shoulder and a Second Amendment sign on his back — causing two real school lockdowns.

Afterward, one grade-school child told me they were locked down in a small room and instructed to protect themselves. Her exact chilling words: “I was really afraid. I cried the whole time. I was praying to God to not let me die. I didn’t want to die. I want to live to be old like you.”

Multiply by thousands and thousands of times the feelings of that single grade-school child to realize the immensity of the terror our children are feeling all across America.

This is not acceptable.

I have not previously written about the political and policy issues surrounding the gun debate – about the NRA’s permanent tribal ritual of finding creative ways to defend the indefensible; about the gun manufacturer lobby’s ritualistic advancement of diversionary tactics to avoid addressing the fear of weapons of war that daily confront our innocent children.

I was taught to shoot by my dad on a 22-short single-shot rifle — taught to respect the Second Amendment and all the other amendments. Consider the 26th Amendment that insures the right to vote to those 18 years of age. That amendment amplifies the voices of the young with votes of the young — young who are taking a stand against military-style gun violence on children in schools.

As Americans vote, we should focus on the fear of young students, on those words: “I was really afraid. I cried the whole time. I was praying to God to not let me die. I didn’t want to die. I want to live to be old like you.”

That will be on the minds of hundreds of thousands as they descend on Washington March 24, led by America’s school children.

As America votes, we need to listen, first and foremost, to the children.

Evan Barrett of Butte retired in 2017 after 48 years in Montana economic development, government, politics and education.